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_____________________________________________________________________________
‘ M a k e - A - R i s c P C ’
Hours of wholesome entertainment for bored people.
by Dave Thomas and Justin Fletcher, © 1995-6
Original Sprites by Dominic Esplen
version 1.11 (09 Jun 1996)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Introduction _____________________________________________________________
Make-A-Risc PC is a very jolly program for constructing yourself an on-
screen fantasy Risc PC out of small components. It needs a ‘square pixel’
screen mode to operate in, such as mode 27 or 22. :-)
In your fantasy Risc PC you can have :
• 14- or 17-inch monitor
• Vertical or horizontal slices
• Keyboard and mouse
• Silly stuff, like a toaster slice, a microwave oven slice and
extra-wide slices.
Make-A-Risc PC is guaranteed free of Lead, E-numbers and dangerous bits of
spikey metal. It is also guaranteed to not be a fire risk which is more than
can be said of certain Acorn products...
Usage ____________________________________________________________________
Load Make-A-Risc PC by double-clicking on its icon in a filer window, it
will install on the right-hand side of the iconbar. Comprehensive
Interactive Help is available throughout this application, you should use
that in preference to this documentation to find your way about.
Open the main window by clicking Select on the iconbar icon. This window
consists of an indented ‘depot’ full of parts at the top and a ‘workbench’
area below. Drag a component part from the depot to the workbench area to
place it. Once a component is on the workbench it can be moved about by
dragging-and-dropping it. Components can be duplicated by holding down Shift
and drag-dropping. Unwanted components can be removed from the workbench by
dragging them anywhere outside the workbench area, typically this means back
onto the depot. You can also remove components by clicking on the component
you want removed with Adjust.
Construct you fantasy Risc PC by dragging the components to your desired
location and dropping them where they match up. Build the biggest Risc PC
you can, be the envy of major governments.
Menus ____________________________________________________________________
Clicking Menu while over the work area will give you a menu with four
options :
Save -> It would be a pity to have to quit this wonderful program
without keeping a record of how you spent your time wouldn’t
it ?
The sub-menu will allow you to save the file in one of two
formats - Description or Image. The description file can be
reloaded by Make-A-Risc PC, and you can look at it in a text
editor, adding comments if you wish. The image file is a
Sprite created using a very crude routine. This can be used
in all manner of programs to advertise your machine.
Wire... This option opens up a small window which contains various
pieces of cabling which you can use to connect components or
machines together. You use this window in the same way as you
use the depot - just drag the required cable sections from the
window and drop them onto the workbench.
These cable sections can be used for making fantasy Risc PC
networks. :-)
Clear This option simply clears the whole workbench area of
components. It doesn’t (yet) ask for confirmation, so be
careful to not select it before saving your latest
masterpiece.
Comments... This entry will send the comments section of the Description
file for the current image to a text editor for editing, so
you can add comments to your description file. This only
works if you are using an editor which supports the ‘External
Editing’ protocol, such as StrongEd or Zap.
This function is also available by Adjust-clicking on the
iconbar icon. Note that the file on disc (if any) is not
updated, so you must save your description file to update the
comments.
The menu available from the iconbar icon offers these options :
Info -> Who wrote this program ? Just some craaazy guys!
Choices -> A couple of choices affecting Make-A-Risc PC’s behavior :
Shadows If set, the parts you drag around the screen will cast
shadows. If unset, they don’t... simple innit ?
Locking If set, when you release a component it will lock to nearby
components. This is still very rudimentary, but should
suffice for most purposes.
Save Saves the state of the above options to a file called
‘Choices’ inside the application directory.
Quit Removes Make-A-Risc PC from memory. You won’t be warned if
you have unsaved data in memory.
Components _______________________________________________________________
The components shown in the parts depot (moving from left to right and
bottom to top) are :
- 17-inch monitor, 14-inch monitor
- Keyboard, Mouse
- Vertical base slice, slice and top cover
- Horizontal base slice, slice and top cover
- Double-width base slice, slice and top cover
- Microwave oven slice, Toaster slice (yay!)
- Fish tank, fish
- Plutonium-powered Amplifier (with graphic equaliser)
- Dual tape deck
- Programmer’s Reference Manual slice, Acorn C/C++ slice
- Tea, Coffee, Orange Juice
- A precarious stacked pile of discs.
Er, that’s it, now go away.
Internationalisation _____________________________________________________
Make-A-Risc PC has been written with multiple language operation in mind.
By altering the Message and Template files, you can enable Make-A-Risc PC to
run in all languages which RISC OS supports.
If you do create such alternative Message and Template files, we would be
very pleased to hear from you. We will also include your alterations in the
master versions.
Bugs _____________________________________________________________________
• Try putting two toasters on top of a wide slice with locking on...
Doesn’t work does it ? That’s what you get when you let Justin write some
code - tut tut... (Justin)
• Seems to leave bits of the Sprites lying around in Mode 22. I think it’s
a Window Manager problem, rather than one of mine. (Justin) Yeah, I
think it’s just a case of the DragASprite blues. ;-) (Dave)
History __________________________________________________________________
Yes, there really are people who care about historical notes... and I’m
one of them. :-) (Justin)
Version 1.00 - Dave Thomas (27 Dec 1995)
(Released) • Main program and Sprites released into PD on web page.
• Problems with the pane meant that sometimes - very rarely -
the pane got stuck where it shouldn’t.
Version 1.01 - Justin Fletcher (20 Jan 1995)
• Pane bug fixed, Sprite save added by clicking Menu on the
workspace.
Version 1.02 - Justin Fletcher (21 Jan 1995)
• Save as text added, and attached to a save box on Menu.
Version 1.03 - Dave Thomas (24 Jan 1995)
• Massive changes to the internals to get rid of all the naff
code Justin added :-)
• File type &142 now used to save textual descriptions with
jazzy Sprite.
• Part codes used now correct in part (sorta ;-).
• New Acorn style save box added
• Menu added - ooohh ! - with option for shadowing during drags
• Juice and aquarium added. (plus a hidden fish :-)
Version 1.04 - Justin Fletcher (29 Jan 1996)
• Help compliant routines added.
• Templates re-aligned, and option added to menu for locking.
• Stack of discs and wire added. (plus a hidden AKF18... grrr)
• amp and tapedeck
• Docs updated.
Version 1.05 - Dave Thomas (30 Jan 1996)
(Released) • Added in the auto-load of description file, which I forgot to
add in last time.
• Fish unhidden. “Run fwee widdle fishie!”
• Window & pane enlarged for new parts, amp and tapedeck which
I also redesigned from Justin’s originals.
• ‘Structured’ the whole program -- eek!
• Rewrote some bits of the docs, yuk, yuk, yuk, I hate writing
docs... ;-)
• !RunImage is now BasCompressed, saving 16K, I fink.
Version 1.06 - Dave Thomas (02 Mar 1996)
• In a flash of inspiration I thought how much easier it would
be if my PRMs and C/C++ boxes had their own slices. Then I
remembered about this program... :-)
• Altered the application’s sprite to reflect changes that have
been made to the parts.
Version 1.07 - Justin Fletcher (02 Mar 1996 at some ridiculous time)
• Added help data for Dave’s new sprites
• Added Clear option on menu
• Reorganised the menu structure to include a Options submenu
• Added Heap management routines to cope with possibility of
adding and editing comments
• Made the Messages and Templates language sensitive
• Added External Edit routines to cope with altering the
comment
• Went to send this straight off to Dave, even though it is 25
to Seven now...
Version 1.08 - Dave Thomas (04 Mar 1996)
• Added the ‘wire’ component, which is handy for fantasy Risc
PC networks. :-)
• Changes to Messages file.
Version 1.09 - Justin Fletcher (11/12 Mar 1996)
• External Edits fixed.
• Checking for quit when modified, new window.
Version 1.10 - Dave Thomas (15/16 Mar 1996)
(Released) • MessageTrans menus implemented.
• ‘Clear’ now removes comments.
• prog_info altered, more space basically.
• Justin’s quit-when-modified window adjusted - new button
sizes, and the buttons slab to grey.
• Internationalisation section added above.
• Upgraded HelpFile reader (1.02).
Version 1.11 - Dave Thomas (03 Jun 1996)
(Released) • Changes to the Messages1 file :
- Use of "/" between tokens for many-to-one entries. e.g. the
wire ones.
- Addition of lintilla.foobar.co.uk for Dom Esplen's Help
entry.
- Change of URL to http://prompt.essex... for Gerph's entry.
• Replaced the other 'really?' dbox with a new RO3.5-style one.
• Minor adjustments to the savebox & prog_info.
• Feet on the vertical slices.
• Adjustments to the 'depot' and 'wire' icon sizes.
• New Plug part in the wire window.
• 'Glint' pixel added to all the screen parts.
• 'Clear' now clears the filename, so that the chance of
overwriting a previous save is reduced.
• A new and exciting addition, which I'm not going to tell you
about... You'll have to ask me. ;-)
Copyright ________________________________________________________________
This software is the copyrighted work of David Thomas and Justin Fletcher,
it is supplied to you, the user, “as is”; you use this application entirely
at your own risk. I make no warranty as to the fitness of this software for
any purpose.
You are free to distribute this application to anyone you please via any
medium, as long as you are not supplying it for personal or commercial gain
and it is delivered with all the supplied files unaltered. If you wish to
supply this software as part of a commerical venture, then contact one of us
to discuss the details.
If you have any comments, bug reports, suggestions for future versions or
anything else don’t hesitate to contact one of us at one of the addresses
below.
Contacting the Authors ___________________________________________________
Dave Thomas :
· Dave created this application, drawing the sprites from the originals
on Dominic Esplen’s RPC Slices page. He is also to blame for
structuring the whole thing. He can often be found in Computer Lab C
of Liverpool John Moores University, swearing at Windows for not being
able to run more than four programs at the same time without crashing.
Mr D.P. Thomas
20 Rosebery Avenue
Waterloo
Liverpool
L22 2BH
E-mail: dpt@tristone.co.uk
WWW : http://www.tristone.co.uk/davespace/
IRC : #acorn as Spanners
Justin Fletcher :
· Justin took the original no-saving version and added the spiffy save
code in Description and Image formats. He designed the disc stack,
exploding monitor and coil of wire parts. He is a poor student who
has to work on a TV at the moment after his A5000’s monitor decided to
do a log fire impersonation. Send him your spare cash.
Justin Fletcher
“Galadriel”
17b Cromwell Road,
Weeting,
Brandon,
Suffolk.
IP27 0QT
E-mail: Gerph@innocent.com
WWW : http://users.essex.ac.uk/users/gerph/
IRC : #acorn as Gerph
Dominic Esplen :
· Dom’s Home Pages include the legendary ‘Risc PC Slice Ideas’ page
which provided the inspiration for this application. Cheers Dom. ;-)
E-mail: se2de@dmu.ac.uk
WWW : http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~se2de/
or http://lintilla.foobar.co.uk/ (evenings)
____________________________________________________________________________